1. Related Applications
The present application claims priority to Japanese Patent Application No. 2005-338269, filed Nov. 24, 2005, the entirety of which is hereby incorporated by reference.
2. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, an in-vehicle apparatus, an information system, and an information processing apparatus control program, and more particularly, to an information processing apparatus, an in-vehicle apparatus, an information system, and an information processing apparatus control program which synchronize playable data between the information processing apparatus and the in-vehicle apparatus.
3. Description of the Related Art
A system has been proposed in which a home computer and an in-vehicle apparatus of a user are operated in a cooperative manner such that music data is transferred from the home computer to the in-vehicle apparatus to achieve synchronization in terms of music data between the music data stored in the in-vehicle apparatus and the music data stored in the home computer (see, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2001-313741).
In such a system, it is assumed that the home computer and the in-vehicle apparatus are connected to each other via communication means such as a wireless LAN, and music data is automatically transferred (downloaded) from the home computer to the in-vehicle apparatus at specified times.
Examples of music data playable by the in-vehicle apparatus include music data stored on a CD/DVD mounted in a CD/DVD changer disposed in the in-vehicle apparatus, music data stored on a hard disk drive (HDD) disposed in the in-vehicle apparatus, and music data stored in a portable audio player such as an iPod (trademark) connectable to the in-vehicle apparatus
In some cases, an overlap can occur between the music data existing in the home computer and the music data already existing in the in-vehicle apparatus. If music data is simply transferred without taking into account the possibility of duplication of music data, there is a possibility that music data the same as music data already existing in the in-vehicle apparatus is transmitted from the home computer to the in-vehicle apparatus. This causes inefficiency in transferring the music data. Furthermore, there is a possibility that the same music data is stored in a duplicated manner in the in-vehicle apparatus, which causes a user to have confusion when the user plays back music data on the in-vehicle apparatus. This is very inconvenient for the user.